Keeping Up With Juliette

Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post,  When I've finished secondary school, I'm definitely going to take advantage of the free time I'll have to start teaching dance. I've been doing dance for about 8 years now and I think I'm ready to start doing some things of my own. I think that many people begin in the education system and never leave the education system but there comes a time when you have to stop learning and actually start doing something. As some of you may know, I did my work experience at this dance studio that I used to go to and I found out that the principal was retiring from her job after 24 years of teaching dance. I was hoping to maybe get a job there after my work experience but since the business was moving into somebody else's hands, I wasn't sure if that would be possible. However, my mum attends some adult dance classes there and the teacher, who'll eventually be taking over the studio, said that she would be mor...

Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post, There's a lot of stories that I've encountered in the past that have been sad and truly heartbreaking but I don't think that I've ever come across a story that was quite so raw and realistic as this one. A few years ago Rio Ferdinand, the famous footballer, lost his wife to cancer. It was a big change for everyone but especially for his three children, who had now lost one of the most important and caring figures in their family. Unfortunately, to make matters worse, recently after the mother's death, the grandmother also got cancer and died shortly after that. When things like this happen in a family, there's a massive fracture as loss so close to people, can bring a lot of sadness. However, despite being so well known, Rio made two documentaries about his grieving process and also about his new relationship that he formed shortly after these events happened. I watched the second documentary and it was re...

Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post,  On Thursday, I was getting ready to go out to dinner at this Chinese restaurant in town. I'm usually quite quick at getting ready so whilst I was waiting for everyone else, I watched a random TED talks video and it was actually really inspiring and interesting. It was about a black American man called Daryl Davis, who attended KKK rallies, after befriending a member of the clan. If you know anything about the Ku Klux Klan then you will know that it's actually, ironically, a white supremacist group. Daryl was determined to find the cause of racial hate and despite his parents explaining what racism was to him as a child, he longed to delve deeper and he felt he needed to do that by meeting these white supremacists in person. What he found was that many people were consumed by fear of the unknown and this fear drived people to become defensive and hate on the so called inferior race. However, this, he said, can come from b...

Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post,  I wouldn't say I watch old fashioned, black and white films all the time but there are certain classics that you just have to see at least once in your life. I think we've all probably watched Charlie Chaplin and maybe even perhaps Gone With The Wind but the one dance film I was really surprised about when I saw it, was Swing Time. This was the 1936 romance musical that starred the famous duo, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. The story is all about a dancer who travels to New York City to prove himself to his fiance and ends up falling in love with his dance partner. The famous scene in this film is when Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire dance the famous tap sequence to Start All Over Again. All the dances in this film are amazing and really have that jazzy, razzmatazz feel to them but everyone remembers this particular song because it's so iconic to the era. The great thing about classics is that they never get old. I re...

Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post,  I think that when  we're little, we do have a period of time when we think about what it might be like to be famous one day. I know that when I was little at least, I really had big aspirations to either be a famous singer or a famous writer. I think that many people can relate to this because when you're younger, there's this sort of fantasy element of being famous because you see your favourite actors and actresses on TV or you listen to your favourite singer and that's how you look up to them.  However, I know that in recent events, the very negative sides to being famous have definitely been highlighted. I don't know the full story behind Caroline Flack, I just know that unfortunately she committed suicide quite recently because the media extensively publicised her court case against her partner. Before this, she was a TV presenter on very popular TV shows like Love Island and she even competed in Strictl...

Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post,  I really enjoy watching TV every morning when I'm on holiday or on a break. It's half term and I've been bingeing through the series of Merlin again. I've watched it hundreds of times and only recently have I realised that it portrays a very important message. It's not the power that a person has which is necessarily dangerous, but how that person chooses to use that power, is. In the series, Merlin is forced to conceal his magic as it's banned in the kingdom of Camelot by Uther Pendragon. Although Merlin chooses to use magic for good by helping Arthur Pendragon to become king and achieve his destiny, Uther believes that all those who possess these powers are dangerous as his wife died because of magic. Although the myth of Arthur and Merlin is nothing but a fairytale, the moral of the story is still very prevalent to this day. If power was such a bad thing, people wouldn't be using it to help those w...

Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post,  I'd say, no matter what kind of dancer you are, strength is really important. Dancers do need a certain level of flexibility in order to pull off all the technical movements and tricks and it definitely does make for a more cleaner and neater final performance. However, I think that strength is just as important, especially for those long and challenging routines that require a lot of physical endurance. At dance lessons on Thursday, we're beginning to do a set of core strength exercises once every month. I definitely think that this is really helpful for me because I'm more of the flexibility type instead of the workout type. It's no good being able to do all these amazing kicks and leaps, if you can't last the performance so we've been doing lots of different sit ups and cardio vascular exercises. I think that it's a common misconception that ballroom and Latin dancers don't need a lot of core s...

Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post,  When people say that interviews can go both ways, believe them. I've been talking a lot about this competitive sixth form college that I've been really trying hard to get to. I went to their open evening and the students seemed really nice and the subjects actually seemed quite interesting. Consequently, I was really quite interested in going there. I went to this other sixth form that I was initially quite interested in, which does the International Baccalaureate, as they offered small taster sessions for year 10 students and I really wanted to go. I was quite disappointed as some of the subjects initially seemed quite wishy washy and not clear and their punctuality was not great, so this other competitive college seemed like the best place to go. Some people I knew really well, also expressed an interest in going there so I thought I could go there too. However, I was really unimpressed by the interview they gave. Firs...

Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post,  There's still a bit to go but I have been looking online for a prom dress that I might like, even though I'm pretty sure that my mum and my sister have got it all planned out for me. I think they might be more excited than I am, just a little bit. My sister's going to do my hair and my make-up and my mum's going to decide on my dress. I don't really think there's anything left for me to really decide upon, is there? Oh yeah, transport. I saw some people at my sister's prom arrive in a cardboard car that they made themselves. I think something like that would be sufficient, don't you think?😂😂 I don't really care what I arrive in to be honest. As long as it's not my dad's old car, I'm sure it will be fine. I only live down the road so I could just walk to the school but I think that will be pretty awkward. But no, my dress is going to be my dress! I've got quite dark hair and a...

Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post,  People tend to choose a creative profession because academic jobs are more challenging. In a way, I can understand why that would make sense to many people. If you wanted to get into medicine or become a paramedic, there's a lot you would have to do beforehand to get there. When I read Noel Fitzpatrick's book, Becoming the Supervet, in order for him to become a professor in his field, he had to go to vet school and specialise in orthopaedic surgery at university. That was a huge undertaking that would stress anyone out because it's so competitive and you've only got one chance to succeed after years and years of study. However, it's a common misconception that dance or any other creative industry, isn't just as stressful. Over the years I've been dancing, I've met a lot of different dancers and dance teachers. Luckily, both of my dance teachers in and out of school now are lovely and supportive bu...

Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post,  There are some films that you watch that really make all your current problems seem so insignificant. The Windermere Children was one of these films. It's a film based on the real life Holocaust survival stories of Jewish refugee children, who were brought to England as part of a rehabilitation scheme, and it's probably one of the best war films I've seen so far. It included different perspectives and different people and in doing so, it brought the trauma that everyone, including the English civilians, experienced during the hard times of war. The film begins with the Jewish refugees arriving in England. Already, you can feel their fear. Being so used to the concentration camps, many of the teenagers were prepared to face another. Little did they know that Windermere was there to help them and make them grow as independent human beings so that they could leave and be successful in life.  It's pretty extraordin...

Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post,  I think you've heard me talk a lot about endurance in the past on this blog and there's never been a better time that this applies to me, then now. There's an art to getting up and feeling motivated for the day ahead. Especially on Mondays where that first day really depicts how the rest of the week is going to go. For me, everyday of the week counts for me as I enter the final stage, dare I say, of the GCSE period. I'm attending probably as many revision sessions as possible, during lunch and after school. When you're reading this, I'll have a biology revision session at lunch and an English revision session after school. I'm more determined then ever to get into this fairly competitive sixth form college in my area and I really want to do my best, as I know it is possible for me, so I'm really giving it everything I've got. However, there's no doubt that I definitely feel a little more t...

Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post,  On Thursday of last week, we were given our assignment brief for dance. I found out that the theme was all about the diversity of our local community and the title of our final piece is "We Live and We Learn." I was quite happy about this theme because last year, the year elevens had to base their dance on disadvantaged children. I don't know how you can even create movements, without knowing what it's like to live with a disability personally. The routines they came up with were quite depressing to be honest because one group decided to have scarves wrapped around their mouths to represent children without a voice. The dancers the year before were a lot better to be honest but it's understandable why everyone struggled with the theme last year. There's a lot we can do with the theme of diversity but it's difficult not to stray too far off topic. My group decided to base our routine on different cul...